Would you rather Subway service cut or fare raised? (New York: maintenance, price)
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NYC is a 24/7 place. IMO you can cut service, but completely shut it down. That would be a disaster. Cut all the unnecessary pay for the MTA employees who do nothing!
As it happens, you've got an MTA employee here who agrees with you. And for some extra savings, duplicative office jobs and unnecessary management positions (some of those guys make more than a hundred thousand a year--and don't get me started on how completely useless they are!) could be eliminated as well.
Unfortunately, even public pressure won't get any of this accomplished. The bottom line is, MTA is accountable only to Albany, and the initiative to start getting things in shape has to come from there.
As it happens, you've got an MTA employee here who agrees with you. And for some extra savings, duplicative office jobs and unnecessary management positions (some of those guys make more than a hundred thousand a year--and don't get me started on how completely useless they are!) could be eliminated as well.
I don't think anyone here would disagree with you and make a claim that MTA management is a model of efficiency and effectiveness. The TWU has stated that 2,000 management jobs can be cut, and I can't say I disagree with this, given that there are more than 10,000 people classified as "Managers/Supervisors" overseeing 58,000 other employees, a ratio of almost 1 manager for every 6 non-managers.
However, the reality is that management and the unions are BOTH part of the problem. Cutting management costs alone just doesn't add up to enough money. Do you really think that duplicative and unnecessary positions as well as some "useless" people do not exist at all among the represented employees? Of course they do, but the union protects every job, no matter how useless, so it is guilty of the same crime.
Moreover, the current proposal calls for 10% pay cuts for 6,000 non-union employees resulting in $62 million in annual savings. This comes at the end of a year when all non-union employees were subject to a wage freeze. At the same time, TWU just won an arbitration award granting 4% annual raises in pay and benefits, which will cost $100 million per year and represents almost a third of the current budget gap.
I would have to assume that there are a lot of honest working people - secretaries, technicians, etc. - among those non-union staff who are quite literally paying for your raise. Not to mention the service cuts and/or fare increases that the general public needs to live with. This is what gets people angry.
The argument being made is that there is a simply lack of accountability and a refusal of the union to at least try to be part of the solution and make some minimal sacrifices for the better good (which private sector unions routinely must do). The union's leaders and members' insistence that "they get theirs" no matter what price the taxpayers, transit riders or fellow MTA employees pay is highly disconcerting and divisive.
Would anyone consider privatizing the public transit and bus system (i.e. have a private company own and run it)? I suspect having this system privately owned would be the only way to fix the system, streamline the operation, implement accountability, improve service, eliminate much of the waste, and most likely, raise the fare. Any thoughts? I would be for this.
Here is an interesting illustration of MTA's efficiency:
NYC Transit, the division of MTA that operates the subways and NYC buses, has operating expenditures of $8.7 billion per year (and rising). NYCT provides approximately 2 billion passenger trips per year. This means that the actual cost to transport a passenger via subway or bus is more than $4 per trip!
Consider this by comparison: the average cost to drive your own car is 50 cents per mile, based on the official IRS rate for expensing mileage.
This means that assuming the average passenger trip via subway and/or bus is 8 miles or less it is actually cheaper on average to transport a person by private car than mass transit!
Isn't mass transit supposed to be more efficient than driving? Apparently it is not, given the current cost structure of the NYC Transit.
That's not a fair comparison, at all, given the fact that the roads people drive on have operating expenses also (maintenance, electricity for street lights, police to patrol traffic behavior, emergency services for crashes, etc.)
That's not a fair comparison, at all, given the fact that the roads people drive on have operating expenses also (maintenance, electricity for street lights, police to patrol traffic behavior, emergency services for crashes, etc.)
Good point, but the cost of road maintainence is generally estimated to be between half a cent to 3 cents per vehicle mile traveled, so it is negligible in this example.
Also, $8.7 billion figure for MTA counts only annual operating costs. It does not include capital costs or interest on capital bonds, which would actually drive the figure much higher.
My point was not to suggest that driving is better than taking transit. It just seems that it should be much less expensive to move a person from point A to point B via public transportation.
Would anyone consider privatizing the public transit and bus system (i.e. have a private company own and run it)? I suspect having this system privately owned would be the only way to fix the system, streamline the operation, implement accountability, improve service, eliminate much of the waste, and most likely, raise the fare. Any thoughts? I would be for this.
Who know, they did start off as private companies, maybe just let the part that is specifically NYC transit branch off, then have the metro north railroad and LIRR go back to not being managed by the MTA and let someone else run the bridges?
Maybe its time to pay for distance travelled instead of flat rate (like the BART syatem in San Francisco). Drivers should not have to pay more in fees (gas taxes, bridge tolls, etc) to subsidize MTA riders.
Would anyone consider privatizing the public transit and bus system (i.e. have a private company own and run it)? I suspect having this system privately owned would be the only way to fix the system, streamline the operation, implement accountability, improve service, eliminate much of the waste, and most likely, raise the fare. Any thoughts? I would be for this.
An interesting question to think about. If it were somehow possible to privatize the MTA or NYCT in some alternate universe, it might be more complicated than it appears.
The first problem is that there is no money to be made. Public transportation in general is simply not profitable nor even very cost effective. Every system in the US is subsidized with tax dollars to keep fares within reach. The MTA as a whole receives 45% of its revenues from state and city subsidies and at least 9 separate dedicated taxes. Even NYCT receives only 48% of its operating funds from fare collection, even though it collects the lion's share of the fare revenue! Even assuming operating costs could be lowered significantly (say 20%), A theoretical private transit corporation would need to be heavily subsidized with public dollars or would need to raise fares to at least $5 per trip to operate and profit on fare revenue alone.
The second problem is the debt. There are currently billions of dollars in outstanding debt for capital projects. Would a private company take that over?
The third problem is would a private company have the ability to continue to borrow billions more to fund future capital improvements? Would Wall St. underwrite the bonds for a private entity with the same confidence as they do for a public entity which can just raise taxes to generate revenue for debt service?
It would be more feasible to spin off the other MTA operating companies: LIRR, Metro-North, Long Island Bus and MTA Bus (Express Buses), because they operate at less of a deficit than NYCT and might just have a chance at being self-funding and profitable if costs were lowered. NYCT is the "money pit" of the organization with a $5B deficit. Bridges and Tunnels is actually a cash cow that generates a tidy $800MM profit that subsidizes the other operating units.
Interestingly, NYS law provides for the existence of authorities like the MTA for the purpose of functioning more like private corporations, so they can (in theory) be more politically and financially independent and provide more efficient service to the public than a directly controlled government agency. However, like everything else connected to our dysfunctional state government, that ideal has been subverted by politics, patronage and favors to special interests.
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